NEWTON — The American flags outside Newton’s schools were, as the superintendent noted, beginning to look a little ragged, so a request was made to the office of Rep. Scott Garrett to see what could be done about procuring a flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol.

On Wednesday, the 226th anniversary of New Jersey ratifying the U.S. Constitution, Garrett appeared at Halsted Middle School, Merriam Avenue Elementary School and Newton High School to present each school with a new flag and to make a short presentation on the history and meaning of the Constitution.

“It is the oldest constitution of any country in the world,” the congressman said during the presentation at Halsted, “and it’s the shortest, just four pages long.”

He noted that the document isn’t perfect — Pennsylvania is spelled wrong — and told the students, “We are experiencing that uniqueness even today.”

While 42 of 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention representing the original 13 states signed the document on Sept. 17, 1787, it wasn’t until the ninth state, New Hampshire, ratified the document in June 1788 that it became binding on all states where it had been ratified and the republic was born.

New Jersey was the third state, after Delaware and Pennsylvania, to ratify the Constitution. The “Pensylvania” misspelling was not uncommon and is found with one “n” in the writing on the Liberty Bell.

Garrett, who is founder and chairman of the Congressional Constitution Caucus, later issued a challenge to “all Americans to play an active role in defending our Constitution. It is both our birthright and our greatest legacy.”

District Superintendent G. Kennedy Greene said the district’s business administrator had been asked about purchasing new flags for the three schools. He said she had heard that members of Congress are given flags that are flown over the Capitol Building to present in their home states and districts.

“The congressman’s office said we could get the flags and Mr. Garrett is here today to make that presentation,” Kennedy said to the assembly at Halsted.

Accepting the flag on behalf of the school were the student body president Amara Skerry and vice president Brandon Posey, both eighth-graders.

After the assembly, the two students, assisted by the school’s chief custodian Barbara Kurbel-Riker, replaced the flag outside the school with both the superintendent and congressman watching.

The Capitol Flag Program began in 1937 when a member of Congress requested a flag that had flown over the Capitol.

The architect of the Capitol is responsible for filling the flag requests from members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and flags are flown daily, weather permitting, except for Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

All flags are flown on special flag poles and are issued certificates of authenticity by the architect of the Capitol.

According to the architect of the Capitol’s website, the office gets and fills more than 100,000 flag requests from members of Congress annually.

The original version of this article incorrectly stated the date the Constitution was signed and has been corrected.

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In 1881, five short line regional railroads combined with the New Jersey Midland Railroad to form the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railway. This new line played an important role in hauling coal out of Pennsylvania to the greater New York metropolitan